Science To Do
by Nerual-56
Summary: Chell has finally won her freedom! ...It's just not quite what she was expecting... What's missing? What could she possibly want more than this? She has her companion cube, but it's just not the same. ONESHOT, short.


_I know that there's a Portal: Prelude and I've read the little comic deal in the extras on Portal 2. I've played through both games more than once, also. The point is that I go out on my own limb (kind of). I dunno. This just popped into my head so I wrote it down. This is a one-shot so I won't be adding more, but I do have a few ideas about other little one-shots centered around Chell and GLaDOS (no slash...sorry). Also, sorry for errors. I didn't read it after I wrote it so I didn't check for grammar or mis-used words. _

Here it was! The moment of truth! Everything she had fought for had all accumulated to this final moment! Chell didn't really understand the swell of emotion in her chest, but she knew that it was connected to victory. She felt it at the end of each test or when she portaled past one of GLaDOS's traps.

Now it was present and more potent than ever. Chell had won her freedom; she had **earned** it. It was hers for the taking! A door swung open and Chell confidently stepped out into the blinding sunlight. As she took in her surroundings, her steps faltered. Her eyes darted about, confused. Wheat. All there was for the eye to see was endless fields of the golden plant. The door slammed behind her, making her jump. Suddenly, a scorched companion cube was flung out unceremoniously and the door shut tight again.

Chell blinked. Wheat fields. This was it? She wondered if there was something beyond the wheat fields...but should she try to strike out and find it? What if there was nothing? What would she eat? What would she drink? The sun was hot and Chell could already feel sweat starting to accumulate on her forehead. She looked at the shabby and rusted shack that she had come out of, then back to the opposite horizon, weighing her options.

Defiance flared up in her head and Chell grit her teeth. No! She had fought for this and now she would take her spoils...however different they might seem. _"Different isn't so bad, is it?"_ She thought to herself _"That different turret didn't hurt me...and it's not like GLaDOS stayed dead so I wasn't so bad after all, either." _She looked at the companion cube, _"But it was me that killed her in the first place...and I murdered my first companion cube." _Chell remembered that horrible moment when she had dropped that first beloved companion cube into the incinerator. She had cried for a long, long time afterward.

GLaDOS, of course, didn't care. Chell knew now that it was all for the tests. Everything GLaDOS did was for the tests. Tests, tests, tests. Chell shook her head, clearing her mind. She placed her hands on the companion cube lovingly, then tried to lift it. It didn't budge. Chell's brow furrowed and she tried with all her strength to lift the cube with the same results. She tried sitting in between the shack and the cube, with her feet on the shack and her back to the cube, literally putting her back into it. Chell exerted the maximum amount of pushing power that her legs would put out, yet the cube only moved a mere few inches.

Chell huffed and puffed with effort, discouraged. It was painfully clear that she couldn't take the cube with her. It was just too heavy. Chell had always used the portal gun to lift things. Once she had lifted a storage cube, but it must have been calibrated to her strength. Chell could run, jump and flip easy as cake; she was agile and had impressive endurance...but, apparently, she was not very strong. _"Maybe I don't need the cube..." _ The cube never did dispense food or water to her...but it was a friend and it kept her company.

Chell sighed and took a few experimental steps into the wheat field. Then a few more, and then more, until she was about forty yards from the shack and her cube. She looked around and suddenly felt nervous. Her head whipped around to look behind her as if she expected something to be there, but only empty space met her eyes. A twinge of fear stood the hair on the back of her neck on end. Chell took a tentative step forward, then flew back the the shack and flung her arms around her cube. _"There's nothing out there!"_ Chell was frustrated. Why was this expanse of nothing more terrifying than burning lasers and pools of deadly toxic liquids? How was the silence more bone-chilling than the sound of sentry turrets searching for you in their creepy little voices?

She sat by her companion cube for a long time, resting her head on it, just looking out into the odd void before her. The sun drifted across the sky, bringing excessive heat to the earth around the shack. Chell crouched behind her cube when the sun got too hot. It burned her skin and made her sweat. It was nothing like the pleasant warmth that radiated from the blue light bridges. This sun was harsh and unforgiving. Chell suddenly noticed that the daylight was fading. Darkness was creeping up one side of the horizon. She faintly remembered what was happening...but it kept slipping her mind. After being in stasis for so long, many of her former memories had been lost in the recesses of her brain.

Before, she had been trying to escape because she remembered the world outside: the sun, the trees, the sky and the people. But when Wheatley woke her up, she remembered little. What memories **were** there, were faint. This most recent escapade was fueled not by her own ambition to escape, but rather by Wheatley's agenda: to overthrow GLaDOS from power. When he betrayed her, Chell's mission switched and her loyalties changed. Suddenly, GLaDOS was her ally and Wheatley her enemy! But was this really all centered around her?

It occurred to Chell that this time around, she really wasn't aiming to become free of GLaDOS or to escape the facility. She had been used as a vessel for the two AI's as they duked it out. Chell was merely caught in the cross-fire! _"So why am I sitting out here?" _Chell frowned as a thought dawned upon her: _"I don't want this. I...I need GLaDOS," _Chell felt a surge of disbelief at her own thoughts. It didn't make sense! She remembered wanting to get out so badly before...but when GLaDOS had been talking to her several hours prior, Chell had felt a little confused. It made sense why GLaDOS wanted her gone...but Chell didn't feel the burning passion to get out as she did before.

In fact, she felt a small pang of sadness as the turrets sang her their good-bye song. Chell was fast realizing that she missed the beautifully stark and sleek test chambers, the mental challenge of the puzzles and the physical thrill of flinging herself across great chasms. This strange golden and azure void that surrounded her now would provide none of those things.

This was not the place that she remembered to be fighting for. She closed her eyes and faintly remembered people, buildings, long ribbons of road, vehicles and trees. There was so much green in her memories. Chell couldn't name most of the things she remembered, but what mattered is that what she saw before her now didn't match the faint images in her head.

She also couldn't remember at all her life before Aperture. She could hardly remember the first set of testing before being woken up by Wheatley. She did, however, remember GLaDOS. GLaDOS was burned into her mind. Chell would never, ever forget that AI. She couldn't. In fact, she didn't want to forget! GLaDOS was somehow a part of Chell now. Chell suddenly felt empty after not hearing a snarky quip from the sarcastic AI. _"I miss GLaDOS...!"_ In the fading light, Chell stepped to the door of the shack and tapped on it. Then she knocked on it a little harder. Soon, she pounded on the door. Night was falling fast and she didn't want to get caught out alone in the dark. Even the companion cube wasn't of much comfort at this point.

GLaDOS was in the midst of repairing her precious facility when some remote audio sensors picked up a pattern of noises. She ignored them, still too focused on keeping the place under control after that little moron got his hands on it. She was livid! She hated the fact that she couldn't torture Wheatley. He was out in space somewhere now and her only hope was that he'd get sucked into a black hole and stretched for the rest of time. The pattern cropped up again, this time more frantic. GLaDOS let slip a moan of frustration and set the repair work to one of the lesser programs. She weaved her way through the endless wires and monitoring systems until her mind reached the sensor that was causing all the fuss.

It was the surface shack's sensor. _"That's odd..."_ The noises came again, and this time they didn't stop for quite some time. GLaDOS gave the door a sidelong look through a monitor and called for the door mainframe to open it. "Oh, wait. That's right. Your dead. You can't open the door, can you? I'll do it since your so incompetent being dead and all." She remotely opened the shack's door and after a few minutes of a scraping sound, something fell into the lift shaft! GLaDOS flinched in surprise, but waited for what ever it was to reach terminal velocity before throwing a panel in it's path. If it was a living thing, it would simply die upon impact with the plate. The object collided with the panel and bounced off with amazing kinetic energy. GLaDOS took a look at the object. "A companion cube? I just threw that thing out of he-"

She suddenly recoiled in shock when a second object dropped into her view. It was a woman wearing a white tank top and an orange jumpsuit with the top half tied around her waist. Upon her feet were Aperture Longfall Boots. GLaDOS instantly recognized the messy pony-tail and the determined expression, "Chell...! ...Your back. Woonnderfulll," Despite the calm tone, Chell knew that the AI was surprised to see her. Chell positioned her hands as if she were holding a Portal Gun. GLaDOS squinted at her, "No. You cannot have the Handheld Portal Device. Go back to the surface. Maybe you'll see that deer I saw earlier," The panel started to rise, but with a great heave, Chell shoved the companion cube into the wall, wedging it between a beam and the panel so that the panel could not go any higher.

Chell glanced around. GLaDOS wasn't visible, but Chell knew that she was watching. GLaDOS was perplexed at this odd behavior. Why was Chell back? Did she want to pick a fight again? Wheatley wasn't here so what was Chell after? GLaDOS decided to simply ask, "What do you want?" but she mentally slapped herself. _"Chell doesn't talk, smart one,"_ Chell put her hands in the Portal Gun position once more. GLaDOS remained resolute, "I **told** you. You ca-" Chell shook her head, then pretended to lift an imaginary cube and place it on an imaginary button. GLaDOS suddenly knew what Chell wanted.

She wanted to test. Chell, after all of that fighting, after finally winning her freedom, came crawling back wanting to test! GLaDOS felt a surge of pride and she smirked at Chell, "So you want to test?" Chell nodded, glad to hear the sarcastic edge back in GLaDOS's voice. "Well you **can't**." Chell's face snapped to a 'what? why?" expression and her mouth fell open. GLaDOS snickered silently and continued, "You owe me a serious apology for trying to kill me...**twice**." Chell frowned at the demand. GLaDOS had attempted to kill Chell more than Chell had tried to kill GLaDOS. Chell rolled her eyes and nodded. GLaDOS snorted, "That wasn't sincere," Chell sighed and climbed up to where GLaDOS's camera was, punched it viciously, then pulled it off the wall. Dropping back down to the panel, Chell hugged the piece of machinery.

If GLaDOS had a mouth, it would have curled into a slightly smug, yet strangely loving smile. "Better, but we'll have to start from test chamber one," Chell pumped her fist in the air triumphantly as GLaDOS lowered the panel into the heart of her Aperture Laboratories Facility. The repairs could be handled by the other programs and those little robots could wait for a few decades. There was science to do.


End file.
